Sansa's Forest Man
by BeatingHeartDark
Summary: Sansa and Tyrion take a quiet walk the morning after their wedding. Sansa tells Tyrion of an event in her past. Sequel to "The Strongest Woman He Knew".


She heard Tyrion's soft foot falls on the rug of their bedroom and she opened her eyes to see the soft light of morning glowing behind the curtained windows. The events of the wedding feast the night before came galloping back into the forefront of her memory and she rose out of bed quickly to try to stop them from trampling her so early in the day. As she sat with her feet dangling over the side of the bed, her eyes adjusting to the light, Tyrion looked at her from across the room. He had slept on the sofa, hadn't even asked her what she wanted him to do.

She pushed herself off of the bed and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. She stepped lightly over to where he stood by the morning's plate of fruit and pastries. Looking at the soft glow of the curtains then back at her new husband, she said "It seems like a nice morning to breakfast outside. Would you care to join me?" Tyrion gave a slight smile and nodded.

In her mind she figured she would walk out onto the balcony and hear the chirp of birds, smell the fresh air as it swept past the dewey green leaves of the trees. But as they sat in silence outside, she could hear nothing but the sounds of an enormous amount of people. Far below them, in the streets of Kingslanding, the whole city was waking and getting on with their busy lives. And by the smell of it, they were all dumping out the contents of their chamber pots and wash basins. Still, she made a good faith effort to enjoy her breakfast. They talked briefly about their plans for the day. It seemed that neither of them had much going on the day after their wedding, that the whole of the court might be giving them a break. She said as much and immediately regretted it.

"I think they call that a honey-moon," her very new husband said. She nearly choked on her strawberry. He grinned and non-chalantly continued. "I'm surprised Lord Tywin didn't have Puck waiting with his ear to the door all night."

"Did you look?" She croaked, half serious. Tyrion belly-laughed but abruptly stopped and glanced at the door to their chambers.

"I really do hope he wouldn't sink that low. Ah no matter. I actually wanted to propose that we do work at getting to know each other better. No, not like that. I was thinking a walk. We spoke briefly about it last night before…" He trailed off, unsure of how to speak of the events during the wedding feast.

"I would love a walk," Sansa had to half shout it over the commotion of the streets below. "But do you know of some place quiet we could take our walk?"

Tyrion had said he knew the perfect place and, Sansa had to admit, he didn't disappoint. They had walked through the gardens to avoid the hustle and bustle of the city and out a side gate to a rarely used trail in the woods adjoining the Kingslanding castle. It was actually not so much a trail as a pathway. Tyrion said it was used by kitchen staff to get from the farms and the markets to the kitchens without having to carry all that food through the streets. She wanted to talk about the overwhelming disparity between the people of the court and the citizens of Kingslanding, but didn't want to ruin their nice walk so early on with talk of abuse and oppression, most of which would have sounded hypocritical to someone as intelligent as Tyrion. Instead, they talked about favorite child-hood memories. Tyrion had Sansa stopped on the path at one point, bowed over laughing. She regaled him with her best stories from her childhood as a sister among 3 brothers and a very boyish sister. He turned to her at one point and asked "Did you REALLY tie your older brother to a tree while he slept?" She laughed and exclaimed "Well I had help! I couldn't have carried him down there by myself!" They both laughed until their stomachs ached and then they sat down for a short rest.

"Are the forests of Kingslanding much different from the forests of Winterfell?," asked Tyrion.

Sansa looked around her. "Except for the blanket of snow everywhere?" She giggled and nodded. " Snow covers the ground for most of the year in Winterfell, but there is a short period of time when the snow melts away and then, no, the forests of Winterfell don't look all that different from these. Except for the inhabitants, that is."

Tyrion's brows shot up in curiousity. "What do you mean by inhabitants?"

"There are mountain tribes and wild forest people. They prefer the solitude of the forest to the harsh day in and day out structure of the villages. They wear animal skins and hunt and gather for all of their supplies. They can recognize every bird call, every track an animal makes."

"You don't sound frightened of these people," Tyrion observed.

"I suppose I'm not. They could easily kill me if they wanted to. But why would they want to? They wouldn't benefit from it. The opposite actually. My corpse would attract bears and even the forest people don't pick fights with bears." She smiled. "Mostly they are peaceful, the ones I've met at least."

"You've MET them?"

"I went with father to barter with the tribes a few times. That's how much he trusted them, he took me along. But there was this one other time. I met one of the lone forest people. He didn't live within a tribe; he lived alone."

"How did you meet him?"

Sansa leaned back against the bark of a tree. "I was out riding. My handmaiden insisted we take a path I didn't usually take. This was a few years ago, I guess. Anyways, some outlaws ambushed us. There were probably four of them. I soon realized that they knew my handmaiden. She had betrayed me and had led me right to them so that they could ransom or kill me, I didn't know which. We were on horses and they weren't so I kicked my poor horse hard and we ran as fast as we could away from them. A little bit down the trail, I jumped off and sent my horse running home. It was a trick I learned from one of my father's battle stories. Hopefully, the outlaws would follow the horse's tracks and would miss mine. I ran as fast as I could through the woods but I didn't recognize a thing. Before I knew it, I tripped and went rolling down an embankment. I rolled all the way down and into an ice cold mountain river. The cold went straight through to my bones. I remember the shock of it. Crawling out onto the bank, I remember knowing I would die if I didn't get home or some place warm. I walked on for some time and the sun started going down. I was lost. Hopelessly lost. At about the time I thought it, a man stepped out of the bushes. I wasn't scared at all. He didn't look like an outlaw. He was like you. Half the size of most men. He had a beard he could have tripped on. And he wore a bear pelt. A BEAR pelt! He had a small axe at his belt and a bow strapped around him. He didn't say a thing. He took off the pelt and gave it to me and motioned for me to follow, which I did."

All the while, Tyrion was staring at her. This young woman was keenly aware of other people, it seemed. Aware of their affiliations, their plight, their lives. She wasn't like any other woman at court and he knew this was because she had an upbringing unlike that of anyone else. Though she may have wanted to live like all the other painted faces, she would never be anything like them.

"He led me to a small, warm cave. There was a fire going, furs on the floor like rugs, fragrant herbs drying all over. It was homey. He gave me hot food and water, he took my wet clothes and gave me warm animal skins to wear, including fur boots I was sure he had painstakingly made. When he finally spoke, it was clear he didn't know who I was. I told him only that I was from Winterfell, that my father and mother and the rest of my family would be worried when I didn't return. I told him about the outlaws and my spectacularly clumsy escape attempt. He listened and then he told me I was brave. He told me to make myself at home and he would go to Winterfell and get me help. Before I could ask who he would talk to, how he would accomplish this, how far it was, he was gone. I slipped off to sleep and when I awoke, my father was picking me up and setting me on his horse. Some time later, I convinved my father to take me back to the cave so that I could return the furs and properly thank him. When we got to the cave, the forest man had moved everything out of it and he was gone. I asked my father why he would have done that and I remember my father sitting me down and explaining that the forest man's half-man appearance most likely drove him to his wild, secluded life. He probably felt hated in the villages, he said. My father said he probably didn't want people finding him so he moved. It was sad and unfair. That good, kind man would never get the recognition he deserved. All of Winterfell knew the story of my rescue by the forest man and for weeks people left offerings of thanks and good-will at various spots in the forest. He was a celebrity, people loved him. They didn't care a whit what he looked like! People aren't all bad. I'd like to believe the world is mostly a beautiful place. But something happened to drive this good man to a life of solitude. He would have rather gone the rest of his life saying not a word to anyone than to have to put up with criticism from mean people."

Tyrion was stunned. She was young. She was telling him this particular story because the forest man looked like him. The moral of the story was that the half-man was good. She was trying to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that she knew he was no monster just because he looked different. He found it a little condescending to be absolutely honest but at the same time, he now knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Sansa was not repulsed by him. He didn't know what to say. He envied the man in the story. He would have run off a long time ago if he didn't think he'd be eaten by wolves the first night or would have starved to death.

Sansa smiled. "Are you thinking that kind of life sounds nice? Living in the peace and quiet?"

"Yes, actually. Dangerous, but nice. I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing. But I would love that kind of simple life." He paused. " Did you say he carried an axe?"

"Yes. One he made, by the look of it."

"Maybe I should be trained in the art of axe-wielding."

"Maybe you should. You could chop attackers' legs off at the knees." They both laughed at the mental image as they stood up and brushed themselves off. "Shall we go back now? It's been a wonderful walk."

"It most certainly has," he replied.


End file.
